Celebrity publicist and PR adviser Max Clifford has been found guilty on eight of 11 charges of indecent assault.

He was found not guilty on two of the charges and the jury was split on another.

He has been bailed and will be sentenced on Friday. Judge Anthony Leonard QC warned him that the fact he was granted bail was no indication of the sentence that would be passed.

The jury spent in the region of 39 hours deliberating their verdicts after the judge first sent them out on 15 April.

The judge told them last Wednesday afternoon that he would now accept majority verdicts. With the jury down from 12 to 10 members, this means he would accept a 9-1 decision in the absence of unanimity, but not any majority lower than this.

Clifford denied all the charges, which span from 1966 to 1984 and relate to seven complainants aged from 14 to 19 years old.

He was first arrested in December 2012 as part of the Operation Yewtree inquiry and was charged last April.

Who is Max Clifford?

Clifford left school at 15 with no qualifications. Having been sacked from his first job in a department store, according to his own website, he trained as a journalist and worked as a junior sports reporter on the Merton and Morden News.

He then moved on to working in press relations with a job at the EMI records press office in 1962, where he was involved in the campaign to launch The Beatles. He then moved to work for a PR agency owned by Chris Hutchins.

He established his own agency Max Clifford Associates in 1970 at the age of 27, beginning by representing Frank Sinatra, Joe Cocker and Marvin Gaye. He later went on to work with Muhammad Ali and Marlon Brando.

He first came into the public eye in 1986 when he invented a story about comedian Freddie Starr eating a hamster sandwich to drum up coverage for an upcoming tour.

In 1989 he brokered a story on former prostitute Pamella Bordes, which grew his reputation for scandal stories and links with the tabloid press. It led to him in 1992 taking on as a client Antonia de Sancha, who had an affair with cabinet minister David Mellor.

In 1998 he broke the story of cabinet minister Ron Davies’ attack on Clapham common, and this was followed by three stories the following year: he revealed Jeffery Archer’s perjury, tipped off the Mirror that Cherie Blair was pregnant, and gave photos of Gary Glitter with underage girls to the media.

Clients following this included Rebecca Loos, who claimed she had had an affair with David Beckham, former FA secretary Faria Alam, Elizabeth Winkfield, an 86 year old woman who refused to pay council tax, and Tracy Temple, who had an affair with John Prescott.

In 2008 he started working with reality TV star Jade Goody, and represented her until her death in 2009.

In 2010 the News of the World settled out of court a case brought against it by Clifford for phone hacking and he would go on to give evidence to the Leveson Inquiry in 2012.